


Tent Bluefield

by Philomytha



Category: Sharing Knife - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-01 04:20:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2759414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mari and Omba pay a visit to Clearcreek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tent Bluefield

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neonhummingbird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonhummingbird/gifts).



The pale spring sun was finally starting to lift the morning's chill as Mari led the way along a narrow path that skirted a pasture, her horse's easy stride rocking her comfortably in the saddle. She reached out her groundsense to its fullest extent, then turned her head sharply. The horse stopped, and she felt a flash of annoyance from Omba as she had to rein in abruptly. 

"What is it?" Omba asked. 

Mari stared up at the wooded hillside. The trees were still in bud, no leaves unfurled for the summer, but up the hill some of the branches were more than bare: they were dead. Worse than dead. 

"Blight," she said, not curse but description. "There's blight up on that hillside. Very fresh. Omba--"

She felt her niece's ground close as tight as she was able. Omba had never patrolled, and couldn't veil herself as tightly as one of Mari's patrollers, but it would do for now. Mari scanned the area as closely as she dared. The blight extended past the edge of her groundsense range, but she could see the gaps in the trees where the undergrowth was gone. 

"Is there a malice?" Omba said. She was trying not to sound frightened, but she was leaking through her veiling. 

"Must be." Mari drew breath. "Right. Sorry, Omba, we might not make it for the baby. It's thirty miles to Pearl Riffle camp and the nearest patrol. How long d'you think it'll take?"

She felt Omba turn her attention towards the horses. "These are good tracks," Omba said. "If we ride through the night... before dawn, probably. But isn't there anything we can do?"

"I don't have a knife on me, and nor do you. So all we can do here is feed it. Warning the patrol is the main thing."

Omba stared up at the hillside again. "There's something moving up there." 

Mari looked, felt with her groundsense, and frowned. "I--yes. But I can't feel it. It's there, but it's not there."

"It's definitely there," said Omba. "It's coming down this way." She put her hand on the hilt of her knife. Mari drew her own war-knife. 

There was a gap in the trees, and Mari blinked. It was a gang of farmer men, five--no, six--all walking down the hill, a casual stroll, as if they'd been holidaying in the blighted landscape. But even now that she could see them, she couldn't sense their grounds. Their voices were starting to carry.

"Are they mud-men?" Omba asked. 

"No." They'd been seen now, and one of the men was waving to them. Reading the gesture without the ground to give her a clue was hard, but Mari thought it seemed a friendly wave of greeting, not a warning or a threat. "They're not mud-men. But that blight is fresh." 

Their horses stood quietly as the farmers approached. One broke away from the others and came ahead, jogging over the rough ground, and close to, Mari saw a broad smile on his face. 

"Lakewalkers!" he said. "Hello!" 

Mari lowered her hand from her knife. There was something oddly familiar about the fair hair and blue eyes. "Farmer," she said cautiously.

"Are you Sumac's mama?" he asked them. "And Dag's Aunt Mari?"

Mari matched the face then. "You're Fawn's brother," she said in return. "What in the wide green world's happened to your ground? To all of your grounds?" The other farmers were gathering around them, keeping a bit further back than the young man, but with more curiosity than suspicion in their gazes. 

"Whit Bluefield," he introduced himself. "Oh, yeah, I guess that would be a bit of a surprise for you. It's these." He reached into the collar of his coat and pulled out a necklace made of hair, with a nut tangled in it. "They're like veiling your ground, sort of." 

Mari blinked. "Dag has been busy," she said. Then she looked up at the hill. "Did you see anything odd up there? Any sign of the malice?"

"The malice is dead," said Whit. "We killed it, ten days ago now. I was showing these fellows the blight, so's they'd know what to look for if it happens again."

Behind her, Omba's horse jittered, a response to the flash of shock from Omba herself. Mari sucked in her breath. "Who killed the malice?" she asked slowly. 

"We did. Sumac's patrol, out of Clearcreek."

Omba nudged her horse forwards. "Sumac's patrol? She's got no business patrolling right now."

"She isn't. But she trains us, and she tells us where to go. Dag came with us for the malice, but we took it. It was just a little one. Sessile." 

Farmer patrollers. She would have thought it was a bad joke, a year ago. But she'd read the reports. If this was Fawn's brother, this sessile must have been the third malice he'd fought. And that was no joke. 

"There's no such thing as 'just a little one', not with a malice. Well. Things have changed in Oleana." 

Whit grinned. "It sure has been busy in the village, this past year. But Sumac hasn't had the baby yet, so you're in time. Leastways, she hadn't had the baby when we went out this morning. You'll want to go on ahead. You're on the right track, can't miss the house--well, you'll know which house, won't you?"

A little dumbfounded by a farmer so casually knowing how groundsense worked, Mari allowed that she would. "I'll see you at supper, then," Whit said. "Nice to meet you." 

The other farmers mumbled a similar chorus, fanning out into a semi-circle to watch as Mari and Omba urged their horses on along the track. Omba glanced back over her shoulder at them several times. Mari felt a similar unease at knowing the farmers were there but not being able to sense their grounds properly. 

"So it's not just campfire talk," Omba said at last. "All that stuff Hoharie was excited about. Ground-shields and farmers killing malices and unbeguilement and who-knows-what else." 

"It's a bit late to be starting to think that Dar was right," Mari said dryly. 

"Not what I meant," Omba said. "But this visit's fixing to be stranger than I thought."

Nudging her horse along, Mari thought Omba was right about that.

* * *

A mile out of the village, Mari bumped grounds with Sumac, and picked out the deep glow of Sumac's husband Arkady, and Fawn's bright sparkle, and any number of farmers close by. And another ground which she knew must be Dag. But very changed, since she'd last seen him leaving Hickory Lake, brighter and denser and also oddly patchy. He'd gone on his travels to change the world, Mari knew, but it seemed he'd mostly changed himself. 

The land around them was farmed now, with little farmhouses and barns dotting the smooth hills sinking down to the river valley. They'd taken the straight route down, mostly avoiding the farmer villages and towns, but now they would be coming right into one, in broad daylight. Omba was broadcasting discomfort at this, and Mari tried to project confidence. She'd been through farmer villages and towns many times, after all. But never as kin, never as a guest. 

There were more houses now, and closer to the road. A woman was out on the front porch of one, beating a woven mat over the rail. She stopped and turned to stare at them, then nodded. 

"You coming to see the medicine men?" she called out. 

"That's right," said Mari. "We on the right road?"

"Just keep on going," she said. "You might find them a mite busy now, though--that patroller wife of his is going to pop any day now." 

"But not yet," said Omba.

The woman's eyes narrowed. "You have the look of her--kin, are you?"

"I'm her mother." 

"Ah. Good. Times like these, a girl needs her own family around her. My eldest girl's moved to Glassforge, but I went up to her for all her babies. Not that your girl will want for help, with those two medicine men in the house. Aye. Keep on the road, the house is down past the pond." She turned back to her mat, but waited until the horses were past before thwacking it with her stick again. 

"The farmers seem friendly," Omba said. "It's not what I expected. From the campfire stories, you know." 

Mari had told a fair few of those campfire stories herself, of hostile farmers, rude farmers, argumentative farmers, farmers who set their dogs on passing patrollers--and received the shock of their lives when the dogs all meekly turned around, lay down and went to sleep. None of the stories had involved curious farmers, friendly farmers, or farmers who chatted about their children. 

There were going to be new stories around the campfires at Hickory Lake Camp soon. 

As the woman had said, they found the house without difficulty. Both Mari and Omba halted to stare at it. Mari had, she allowed, seen larger houses, in Glassforge and in Tripoint, and some of the more prosperous farms she'd passed on her patrols. But this building was rambling and wild, as if it had grown out of dozens of farmer boats beached on the shore, with a long porch along the front to hold it together. 

"Sumac lives here?" Omba whispered. "No wonder she wanted to come back." 

A door at the front opened and Fawn came out, beaming. Her ground was unshielded, broadcasting welcome and happiness and excitement in the wide-open way Mari recalled from her time at Hickory Lake. 

"Mari! Omba! My, it's good to see you both. Dag'll be out in a minute to show you where you can stable the horses, he'n Arkady are just finishing up with a patient in the kitchen." 

Mari swung herself down, and Omba did the same, and Fawn came straight over to hug them both. Mari felt Omba's slight surprise at the warmth of this greeting. 

"How was the trip down? No trouble? I guess it's not that much travel for you, is it?"

"I did meet your brother just north of here," Mari said. "With his, ah, patrol. Where they had the malice."

"Oh! Yes, he was up there today, wasn't he. Did you know about the malice? It was a bit of a shock, but Dag said it was just a little one, and the patrol caught it early." 

"That's what we always hope for," said Mari. "Doesn't always turn out that way. Your farmers did well there." 

At that moment Dag emerged onto the porch, trailed by a farmer woman and the groundsetter Arkady. 

"I won't keep you if you've got visitors," the farmer woman was saying. "Thanks for the powders. I'll send the duck up tomorrow, it'll do you well with your guests here."

"That it will," said Dag. "But send for us if his fever gets worse again. We'll come out." 

The farmer woman nodded to them all and headed down the road. Her initial greeting forgotten, Mari said, "You ask the farmers to pay for your healing?" 

There was a faint flicker of discomfort from Arkady, but Dag said, "It's mostly in kind, and never more than they can afford. But it matters. If we just ride in on our fine horses and do medicine and ride away, it's like being lords. If they call us when they want us and pay, then we're equals. It's like unbeguilement, Fawn says." There was a flash of warmth as he spoke of his farmer bride, and that at least was exactly the same as it had been since she'd first seen them together at the inn at Glassforge. 

"Unbeguilement, huh," she said. She'd only partly understood when Arkady and Hoharie had been talking late into the night about beguilement and unbeguilement and all matter of groundsetting puzzles, in the tent last summer. She looked at Dag properly, then pulled him into a quick hug. "You've been eating well. Farmer life's good to you." 

"That it is." She was aware of him assessing her just as surely as she was him, trying to find out how she had changed in his absence. Beside them, Arkady was greeting Omba with a somewhat awkward embrace. Finding that her new tent-son was older than she was had been a shock for Omba. But then Sumac came out, billowing and enormous, and Omba and Arkady both turned immediately to her. 

"I'll take your horses round," Dag said as Fawn began to usher Omba inside. Mari gave Fawn a smile of greeting, but turned to follow Dag with the horses. 

"You've changed," she said as they headed past the pond. 

"Living things do." But the terse reply was softened by a slight smile.

"A groundsetter, absent gods. We all knew you were hiding something, but that's not what I'd have guessed."

" _Training_ as a groundsetter," Dag corrected her. "Arkady's very eloquent on that subject. According to him, I'm nothing but a mess of bad habits and sloppy groundwork, so far."

"Hoharie was very eloquent on the subject of me hiding a groundsetter in my patrol for who-knows-how-many years," Mari returned. "The revolutionary, now, that I knew all along." 

Dag laughed at that, and Mari knew her surprise was showing in her ground. She couldn't remember the last time she'd heard Dag laugh. "People call me a revolutionary," he said. "I'm just trying to find a way to make a life that works. It seems to ... spill over." 

"It surely has." 

They reached the barn and stables, where there were far more horses than Mari had expected, all in good condition and several in foal. 

"Whit's been investing in horseflesh," said Dag. "It seems to pay off for him. Boy's got an eye for a good deal." He looked at Mari and Omba's horses with admiration. "These must have been from Arkady's bride-gifts." 

They were, two elegantly bred animals from the south. The valuable bride-gifts had done something to sweeten Cumbia towards the new member of her tent, and Dar had found little to object to in Arkady's skill. But all the horses in Oleana wouldn't have made them happy about Sumac and Arkady living in a farmer village with Dag and Fawn. Mari was a little puzzled by it herself. Dag did have a knack of inspiring loyalty, and Sumac had always admired him, but enough to take leave from the patrol and spend her child-years in a farmer village? 

But not idle, Mari recalled, remembering the fresh blight and the mention of 'Sumac's patrol'. That was achievement in plenty for the few months she'd spent here. 

They settled the horses, working in the smooth rhythm of people who've worked together for many years. Mari found that oddly comforting. Not everything about Dag had changed. 

"Come on in, then," said Dag. "Meet the whole family."

* * *

Fawn's welcoming feast had been eye-popping, not to mention belt-popping. Mari and Omba had been treated to a table heaped with food, even in the spring when stores were running low. In the mellow well-fed calm after the rush of cookery and cleaning-up, all the members of this strange household were settling down in a parlour at the back of the house, overlooking the creek. Sumac had the most comfortable spot by the fire, and Arkady was rubbing her feet in an attentive manner that made Omba smile approvingly at him. Dag and Fawn were snuggled together on a wooden settle covered with cushions and blankets, the baby asleep in a basket close at hand. And then there were the farmers. It had taken a few rounds for Mari to get them all straight. It turned out that the house properly belonged to Berry Bluefield, who was married to Whit and who had taken only a minor part in the preparations for the feast, and then there was Berry's young brother Hawthorn, an uncle Bo, and a boy Hod who Mari couldn't account for but who seemed part of everything. 

But the strangely matched household seemed to work. Mari had offered to help with the preparations for the feast, and again with the cleanup, and both times Fawn had politely refused. So instead Mari had rocked her namesake and played with her to leave the adults free to work, and watched. And this tent ran well, smoothly even with the twin complications of visitors and Sumac's late pregnancy. Mari had seen patrols run much less smoothly. She'd run patrols that went less smoothly when she was--well, somewhat older than Fawn, truth to tell. After watching the farmer girl try her hardest to fit in at Hickory Lake, ignorant of the most basic things, it was strange to see her working in her own world, confident and at ease. It was clear that while the house belonged to Berry, the ordering of it fell mostly to Fawn, and not just because Berry had only lately returned from the river. 

Even stranger had been watching the farmers deal with the Lakewalkers, casually, easily, like tent-kin. When Whit got back from his expedition, he'd fallen into conversation with Sumac about patrol details and horses, and Arkady had dealt comfortably with Hawthorn's questions about a puppy just as he might with a Lakewalker child. It was a world Mari would never have imagined possible, a year ago, and she thought these people were well on the way to not even noticing how strange it was any more. 

"So what's the news from Hickory Lake?" Dag asked, once they were all comfortably settled with beer or tea according to taste. 

Mari stretched out her legs towards the fire. "There's been a lot happening, this past year." 

Dag snuggled closer to Fawn and said, "I reckon there would be." His ground flickered, but didn't give anything away. Mari focussed her attention on Fawn. 

"I've been instructed by the camp council to offer you tent-rights," she said. "Tent Bluefield, at Hickory Lake." 

She felt Fawn's surprise, and the ripple in Dag's half-closed ground. "That's ... a big change," said Fawn cautiously. "What brought that on?"

"They've been talking around and around it all since you left. Then they started the farmers in the patrol, and that worked out. Worked out a bit too well. Fairbolt's eldest got herself string-bound to one of them. Same way you did, they made marriage cords and everything. That was a stunner for everyone." 

She felt the ripple of surprise run through Sumac too then. "Jossie Crow? Stringbound to a farmer?" 

Dag turned to Fawn. "Jossie Crow was married before, to another patroller, and they had a baby before her husband died. An accident on patrol, not a malice."

"The farmer's a widower too, with two children," Mari said. "His wife died in childbed with their third, and then there was Greenspring. His children were living with his sister. But now he wants to bring them to camp and raise them along with Jossie's daughter while she patrols. And the camp council has said yes." 

"Huh," said Dag. "Well--huh." He looked sideways at Fawn. Mari noticed that Sumac and Arkady were looking at her too. 

"Go live in the Lakewalker camp?" Whit said. "But--"

His wife elbowed him, and he fell silent. 

"Hard to be a medicine maker to farmers up at Hickory Lake," Dag said slowly.

"I've just got my new iron cookstove all set up," said Fawn. 

Mari had a sense that these were the smaller objections, concealing the larger and more significant ones. Dag squeezed Fawn's hand, and they looked at each other again. 

"We're pretty settled here right now, Aunt Mari," Dag said. "I think we'll leave setting up a farmer tent at Hickory Lake to Jossie Crow and her husband."

Fawn's ground glowed. "It's all your new ideas, Dag," she said. "Taking root where you've been."

"Aye," said Dag. "There's no sense in going straight back over ground you've just patrolled. Whatever there is to do next, it's here, not in Hickory Lake." 

Arkady, who'd been sitting in ground-veiled silence, rubbing Sumac's feet in his lap, said, "You're not half trained yet, either, and it seems we're settled here for the time being." 

"I didn't think you'd accept," said Mari. "Especially not after seeing what you've made here. But I had to make the offer." 

"Might be a day when we'll want to accept," said Dag. "If your little namesake here has strong groundsense when she's older, she might want a place at Hickory Lake. But not now." 

"We've got Tent Bluefield right here," said Fawn. "I think it's doing pretty well."

And looking around, Mari had to allow as that was true. She raised her beer mug. "It is at that. Here's to Tent Bluefield!"

And there was a chorus of assent from around the room.


End file.
